Strong coupling of magnons in a YIG sphere to photons in a planar superconducting resonator in the quantum limit.

We report measurements made at millikelvin temperatures of a superconducting coplanar waveguide resonator (CPWR) coupled to a sphere of yttrium-iron garnet. Systems hybridising collective spin excitations with microwave photons have recently attracted interest for their potential quantum information applications. In this experiment the non-uniform microwave field of the CPWR allows coupling to be achieved to many different magnon modes in the sphere. Calculations of the relative coupling strength of different mode families in the sphere to the CPWR are used to successfully identify the magnon modes and their frequencies. The measurements are extended to the quantum limit by reducing the drive power until, on average, less than one photon is present in the CPWR. Investigating the time-dependent response of the system to square pulses, oscillations in the output signal at the mode splitting frequency are observed. These results demonstrate the feasibility of future experiments combining magnonic elements with planar superconducting quantum devices.

Direct measurement of magnon temperature: new insight into magnon-phonon coupling in magnetic insulators.

We present spatially resolved measurements of the magnon temperature in a magnetic insulator subject to a thermal gradient. Our data reveal an unexpectedly close correspondence between the spatial dependencies of the exchange magnon and phonon temperatures. These results indicate that if--as is currently thought--the transverse spin Seebeck effect is caused by a temperature difference between the magnon and phonon baths, it must be the case that the magnon temperature is spectrally nonuniform and that the effect is driven by the sparsely populated dipolar region of the magnon spectrum.

Oscillatory energy exchange between waves coupled by a dynamic artificial crystal.

We describe a general mechanism of controllable energy exchange between waves propagating in a dynamic artificial crystal. We show that if a spatial periodicity is temporarily imposed on the transmission properties of a wave-carrying medium while a wave is inside, this wave is coupled to a secondary counterpropagating wave and energy oscillates between the two. The oscillation frequency is determined by the width of the spectral band gap created by the periodicity and the frequency difference between the coupled waves. The effect is demonstrated with spin waves in a dynamic magnonic crystal.